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I see a ton of people on this forum advocating for BPA, and that follow the line of thinking that Ballard will also go BPA at 26. My question is that if BPA at 26 is Josh Jacobs or TJ Hockenson, would you be okay with that selection? Neither RB or TE is a glaring need at this moment, though Doyle is coming off of injury and he and Ebron are both nearing the end of their respective contracts. I, personally, would be okay with either selection, because most rankings I've seen have these guys as Top 10 talent within the draft, and don't see how you don't take Pro Bowl talent at 26. Everyone screams for DE help, but we took 2 very capable, albeit raw, prospects last year, and who knows how these guys are going to develop? Now, let me end this by saying if I had my choice of selections with the 1st three picks, they'd be as follows: 1) DE, DT 2) DE, DT, S, CB 2-2) WR, or whichever of the above hasn't been addressed yet.

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I'd like to state that "BPA" is a gross oversimplification of my own personal draft philosophy.

But personally, depending on how the board falls, I'd be fine with Hockenson. He looks like a ten year starter to me. No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkley or McCaffrey.

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I'd like to state that "BPA" is a gross oversimplification of my own personal draft philosophy.

But personally, depending on how the board falls, I'd be fine with Hockenson. He looks like a ten year starter to me. No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkley or McCaffrey.

I wonder why so much hype for Jacobs? He wasn't even the starter on his own team was he?

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I'd like to state that "BPA" is a gross oversimplification of my own personal draft philosophy.

But personally, depending on how the board falls, I'd be fine with Hockenson. He looks like a ten year starter to me. No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkley or McCaffrey.

I'd think a BPA board without such adjustments would be shortsighted, and 'yes', I wouldn't complain.

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The thing about BPA is you also have to add value or the system dosnt work. A RB dosnt hold much value in the first round so Jacob's is a no go. We have a generational QB so there is no value in having a QB if he is the best available. If a certain defensive player is great but not a scheme fit there isnt any value, making him not the best available.

Now TJ Hockenson on the other hand can become a BPA pick. Now he may not be a need, but with Ebron and Doyel both having their contracts come up at the end of the year, he could become useful.

I get why people want to aim the draft around needs, but it's not the way you build a champion. Why take a person of lesser talent because he is needed. Say we do that for the D-line. The only DE is Polite. Definitely a position of need, but you cant tell me you want Polite over Hockenson. Not only that, but now you have a player that isnt working out and DE is still a need. Someone who got further into the playoffs now has a pro bowl TE too.

It happened a few years ago with Hooker. There were bigger needs still on the board but Hooker was far better than anyone else on Ballards board. It worked out well for us aside from the injury, that you can't preditct.

Round one should always be spent on the best player available, the further rounds are were you start gambling on needs.

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I'd like to state that "BPA" is a gross oversimplification of my own personal draft philosophy.

But personally, depending on how the board falls, I'd be fine with Hockenson. He looks like a ten year starter to me. No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkl﻿ey ﻿or McCaffrey.

Yep... I like to call my draft strategy Best Value Available and it incorporates both my evaluation of the players and a positional value element. The positional value element is where the most RBs suffer the biggest hit in my evaluation. I just don't value the position much and that's why they usually drop significantly in my evaluation even if I think that purely football wise they are great players. Just an example - last year I had Barkley as my best player in the draft, but after positional value deduction he ended up no. 11 on my board.

And with that said... yeah. If the players rank as BVA on my board even if they are RB or TE, I would pick them. Hockenson would almost certainly be worthy of a pick at 26(I'm not finished with my film watching and evaluations yet), but I doubt Jacobs will be.

Some other consideration within reason enter the equation too... for example drafting QBs high when we already have Luck, etc.

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Yep... I like to call my draft strategy Best Value Available and it incorporates both my evaluation of the players and a positional value element. The positional value element is where the most RBs suffer the biggest hit in my evaluation. I just don't value the position much and that's why they usually drop significantly in my evaluation even if I think that purely football wise they are great players. Just an example - last year I had Barkley as my best player in the draft, but after positional value deduction he ended up no. 11 on my board.

And with that said... yeah. If the players rank as BVA on my board even if they are RB or TE, I would pick them. Hockenson would almost certainly be worthy of a pick at 26(I'm not finished with my film watching and evaluations yet), but I doubt Jacobs will be.

Dang, in hindsight would you still have Saquon all the way out of the Top 10, knowing he is probably the best RB in the league? Given what he was a to produce on a downtrodden Giants offense, I'd have to think he was, in hindsight, the best player in the draft.

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Dang, in hindsight would you still have Saquon all the way out of the Top 10, knowing he is probably the best RB in the league? Given what he was a to produce on a downtrodden Giants offense, I'd have to think he was, in hindsight, the best player in the draft.

That's why teams trade out of top spots, isn't it?

Other's highly desirous of a player you place lesser value on(?).

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Dang, in hindsight would you still have Saquon all the way out of the Top 10, knowing he is probably the best RB in the league? Given what he was a to produce on a downtrodden Giants offense, I'd have to think he was, in hindsight, the best player in the draft.

Yes. I expected him to be this good... he's the best RB I've ever evaluated... and I still would rather have the top player of almost any other position than him.

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I wonder why so much hype for Jacobs? He wasn't even the starter on his own team was he?

I dont think there is a huge amount of hype for his talent. Just that he is easily the best RB in this years draft and there are some RB needy teams.

30 minutes ago, stitches said:

Yep... I like to call my draft strategy Best Value Available and it incorporates both my evaluation of the players and a positional value element. The positional value element is where the most RBs suffer the biggest hit in my evaluation. I just don't value the position much and that's why they usually drop significantly in my evaluation even if I think that purely football wise they are great players. Just an example - last year I had Barkley as my best player in the draft, but after positional value deduction he ended up no. 11 on my board.

And with that said... yeah. If the players rank as BVA on my board even if they are RB or TE, I would pick them. Hockenson would almost certainly be worthy of a pick at 26(I'm not finished with my film watching and evaluations yet), but I doubt Jacobs will be.

Precisely. I can see the Raiders grabbing him in rd 1. Their value for him is a lot higher. What if he fell to the jets in the 3rd? Are you grabbing him? Still no, because his value to them is still basically 0.

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Lets face it, even though BPA is the way many/most teams grade and rank players and stack the board, there is a still a small human element of bias. We think we aren't, convince ourselves we aren't, but it will impact who is favored in very closely graded players. I bet if studied, players in a perceived position of need will get favored over a slightly better player in a stacked team position. I actually would have no issue with this either. It is when a player significantly graded higher on your board is still there when it's time to choose, but he is not one of the perceived positions of need. This is where the GM has to be true to the board arrived at by all scouts/coaches/and the GM and take the guy anyway.

Ted Thompson had an inkling Rodgers could fall in the draft. So he studied tape, etc.. well before the draft. on Draft day, he told everybody in the draft room if Aaron gets to #24, he's taking him as he was far above the other players uncovered on their board. He knew Favre was playing well and a very durable QB. So he'd hear the pleas of so many needs, etc... Aaron falls.

Andrew Brandt stated -

"I can just sense [in] the [draft] room to my right were the coaching rumblings where you could just sense they're like 'Oh my God, are we really going to do this? We're going to take a player that can't help us this year, maybe not next year, maybe not the year after, maybe never.' There was some rumbling. And I sense what was going on to my left side, which is more management oriented, and it was the same thing they always say, which is trust the board. We put in all our scouting, we're going to take the best player available. And obviously management won out over coaching."

Gruden regrets passing on Aaron Rodgers (taking Cadillac Williams) to this day. Green Bay ultimately won with Super Bowl victories with both Favre and later Rodgers.

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Lets face it, even though BPA is the way many/most teams grade and rank players and stack the board, there is a still a small human element of bias. We think we aren't, convince ourselves we aren't, but it will impact who is favored in very closely graded players. I bet if studied, players in a perceived position of need will get favored over a slightly better player in a stacked team position. I actually would have no issue with this either. It is when a player significantly graded higher on your board is still there when it's time to choose, but he is not one of the perceived positions of need. This is where the GM has to be true to the board arrived at by all scouts/coaches/and the GM and take the guy anyway.

Ted Thompson had an inkling Rodgers could fall in the draft. So he studied tape, etc.. well before the draft. on Draft day, he told everybody in the draft room if Aaron gets to #24, he's taking him as he was far above the other players uncovered on their board. He knew Favre was playing well and a very durable QB. So he'd hear the pleas of so many needs, etc... Aaron falls.

Andrew Brandt stated -

"I can just sense [in] the [draft] room to my right were the coaching rumblings where you could just sense they're like 'Oh my God, are we really going to do this? We're going to take a player that can't help us this year, maybe not next year, maybe not the year after, maybe never.' There was some rumbling. And I sense what was going on to my left side, which is more management oriented, and it was the same thing they always say, which is trust the board. We put in all our scouting, we're going to take the best player available. And obviously management won out over coaching."

Gruden regrets passing on Aaron Rodgers (taking Cadillac Williams) to this day. Green Bay ultimately won with Super Bowl victories with both Favre and later Rodgers.

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BPA is different for every team and its based on how that particular player would fit into their scheme.

So a player like Burns from FSU may be the number 2 pass rusher on Pittsburgh's BPA List because he's better suited as an OLB versus number 11 on the Colts list because he is too light in the britches to play DE in our system.

Additionally, each team removes players based on medical, background, and attitude completely off of their board!

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﻿ Ted Thompson had an inkling Rodgers could fall in the draft. So he studied tape, etc.. well before the draft. on Draft day, he told everybody in the draft room if Aaron gets to #24, he's taking him as he was far above the other players uncovered on their board. He knew Favre was playing well and a very durable QB. So he'd hear the pleas of so many needs, etc... Aaron falls.

Andrew Brandt stated -

"I can﻿ just sense [in] the [draft] room to my right were the coaching rumblings where you could just sense they're like 'Oh my God, are we really going to do this? We're going to take a player that can't help us this year, maybe not next year, maybe not the year﻿ after, maybe never.' There was some rumbling. And I sense what was going on to my left side, which is more management oriented, and it was the same thing they always say, which is trust the board. We put in all our scouting, we're going to take﻿ the best player available. And obviously management won out over coaching."

I agree with this post and the point you're making, but to be fair, the Packers thought Favre might retire within a year or two (and he openly flirted with it for at least a couple years before he finally told them he was done). They didn't expect to have Rodgers on the bench for three years. And if Favre was 32 instead of 36, they probably wouldn't have drafted Rodgers.

My point is they felt they needed to prepare for life after Favre, and that influenced their decision in 2005. It wasn't totally 'we have zero need at this position, and we're going to take a player who won't see the field for three seasons.'

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BPA is different for every team and its based on how that particular player would fit into their scheme.

Yes. And more than that, often a player doesn't even make a teams board because he is not close to being a schematic fit. There may be only 150-175 players on some teams big board because not every team has all of the same players on their boards.

7 minutes ago, Scott Pennock said:

Additionally, each team removes players based on medical, background, and attitude completely off of their board!

Many have a red flag section off to the side as well. If a 6.5 - 7.4 players falls to past a certain round (say 4 in this players case), then red flag guy might get put back on board for next pick (some teams, not all).

Here's a former Pro and College scout / coach / Adminstrator with basics of how a draft board gets set up-

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Yes. And more than that, often a player doesn't even make a teams board because he is not close to being a schematic fit. There may be only 150-175 players on some teams big board because not every team has all of the same players on their boards.

Many have a red flag section off to the side as well. If a 6.5 - 7.4 players falls to past a certain round (say 4 in this players case), then red flag guy might get put back on board for next pick (some teams, not all).

Here's a former Pro and College scout / coach / Adminstrator with basics of how a draft board gets set up-

Cain is a perfect example. 2nd Round talent drafted in the 6th Round.

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I agree with this post and the point you're making, but to be fair, the Packers thought Favre might retire within a year or two (and he openly flirted with it for at least a couple years before he finally told them he was done). They didn't expect to have Rodgers on the bench for three years. And if Favre was 32 instead of 36, they probably wouldn't have drafted Rodgers.

My point is they felt they needed to prepare for life after Favre, and that influenced their decision in 2005. It wasn't totally 'we have zero need at this position, and we're going to take a player who won't see the field for three seasons.'

It was actually a we'll never see him. Even when they found out draft day Smith was going #1. Thompson felt Rodgers was going to be a Buccaneer. But he had done his film work anyway. When Gruden passed, he thought he would be a Titan. When Pacman Jones went, Thompson stopped taking phone calls for a possible trade down. He was in a hold pattern for him then. Still not expecting him to be there at all, nor that Brett would fake retire until finally doing so 3 years later (then unretiring again and get shipped to the Jets).

So they really weren't in a tight bind to try to get him They were looking to trade down, not up), nor did they expect to land him in the grand scheme. But the work Ted Thompson put in anyway paid off. That's the point.

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It was actually a we'll never see him. Even when they found out draft day Smith was going #1. Thompson felt Rodgers was going to be a Buccaneer. But he had done his film work anyway. When Gruden passed, he thought he would be a Titan. When Pacman Jones went, Thompson stopped taking phone calls for a possible trade down. He was in a hold pattern for him then. Still not expecting him to be there at all, nor that Brett would fake retire until finally doing so 3 years later (then unretiring again and get shipped to the Jets).

So they really weren't in a tight bind to try to get him They were looking to trade down, not up), nor did they expect to land him in the grand scheme. But the work Ted Thompson put in anyway paid off. That's the point.

That's not my point though. Of course they scouted him, and slotted him on their board. I think that's how any competent GM builds a draft board, to start. That includes the consensus top five guys, even when you're picking in the 20s.

I'm saying that their decision to draft him wasn't entirely independent of perceived need. While Favre would wind up starting for another three years, I don't think they expected him to stay that long when they drafted Rodgers. Or, at least, they thought there was a chance he'd retire sooner than that, and they wanted to draft his replacement before it was too late.

To your point, it was absolutely not the biggest / most immediate need for them at the time. And I don't think anyone expected him to fall so far before the draft. It was high drama at the time, watching him languish away in the green room. But weirdly, as he started to slide, it seemed like there was a small chance he'd make it to #24.

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To your point, it was absolutely not the biggest / most immediate need for them at the time. And I don't think anyone expected him to fall so far before the draft.

Right. Coaches didn't want him, they kept thinking they would have Favre for awhile. The GM (not the scouts, not the coaches) had done the film study work pre draft on a hunch it had a small chance to happen. When word was 49'ers were going with Smith, Thompson had long stashed the hay in the barn, even though Gruden/Bucs seemed to be the landing spot if he did slip, Titans or then the Chiefs after that. It was a GM staying true to the board even over the coaches wants pick. And he had the backing of the higher ups too.

"Bob Harlan, Packers president: "The day of the draft, when Aaron kept falling, when we were probably five or six choices away, Ted asked me if I'd step out of the room with him. We went into his office and he said, 'If Rodgers is still there, I'm going to take him because he's the top guy on our board and there he sits.' He said, 'We're going to catch some heat because Brett's playing and playing well and people are going to say you've got so many needs why in the world are you taking a guy who's going to sit on the bench?' It was the same thing I told Ron [Wolf] all those years, I told Ted, 'It's your club. You do what you want to want to do and make the choice you want to make, and we'll stand with you.' So the two of us go back in the room and there it comes and there he sits. Ted stands up and says, 'Fellas, I'm going to take Rodgers.'"

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I'd like to state that "BPA" is a gross oversimplification of my own personal draft philosophy.

But personally, depending on how the board falls, I'd be fine with Hockenson. He looks like a ten year starter to me. No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkley or McCaffrey.

That time is what I was expecting. He is a powerful three down back that excels in all of the other tangibles you want from a RB. Daniel Jeremiah just said many of the coaches and GM's at the workout were hoping for a time like that so he could possibly slide down to them. That time is not going to hurt his draft status IMO.

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That time is what I was expecting. He is a powerful three down back that excels in all of the other tangibles you want from a RB. Daniel Jeremiah just said many of the coaches and GM's at the workout were hoping for a time like that so he could possibly slide down to them. That time is not going to hurt his draft status IMO.

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I would think and Jonathan Abrams would be ranked high based on the Colts BPA board. Would love to have him at 26. If he is not available I can see them going with another position besides QB. Hooker would be a great later round selection if Abrams is gone by 26

Joseph

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That would be perfect. I hope as many RBs and QBs as possible get picked before us...

Exactly. Best case scenario, 4 QB's go, Jacobs goes, 2-3 WR's go, that's 7-8 spots that aren't occupied by elite defensive line talent, or occupied by elite "Colts-needs" talent, period. I could see Ballard trading up if the right guy were to slip deep enough into the teens, or early 20's, and I'd be perfectly okay with that. For the right guy, I think you could justify sending the Jets pick.

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No to Jacobs, he's a RB who will have a limited career, and not even a particularly dynamic or versatile RB like Barkley or McCaffrey.

I'm not sure what your definition of versatile is, but Jacobs runs hard (with an attitude), pass blocks well and is a good reciever out of the backfield. He is not explosive and therefore probably not a homerun hitter, but he is versatile. I am a fan of how hard he plays. That being said, I don't really care for any RB being picked in the first round.

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I'm not sure what your definition of versatile is, but Jacobs runs hard (with an attitude), pass blocks well and is a good reciever out of the backfield. He is not explosive and therefore probably not a homerun hitter, but he is versatile. I am a fan of how hard he plays. That being said, I don't really care for any RB being picked in the first round.

Yeah, I mean in comparison to McCaffrey and Barkley. I don't see Jacobs as a guy who's going to give you 80+ catches a year like those guys. And while he's capable enough, I don't see him as a particularly dangerous weapon in the pass game.

The QB usually gets mentioned first by most people. I have noticed the media mentions Chris Ballard a lot though. I still say Ballard is the face of the franchise now. He is the one that does most of the speaking and is building the team. Without Luck here, Ballard is brought up quite a bit.

24-20 Colts win. If we play anything like we did last week we will win. We beat ourselves last week. Rivers and the Chargers are a better team compared to the Titans. We typically own the Titans as well. No silly turnovers or silly penalties we should be in good shape.